Twenty-seven kids with decent to amazing vocabulary skills and a whole lot of courage proved once again Friday night that The Times Herald Spelling Bee is a tradition like no other.

For the 66th time in eight decades, top spellers from area schools braved their way through some of the most obscure words you’ve never heard to show the world — or at least the 75 or so people in attendance in the Norristown Area High School auditorium — their spelling mettle.

Advertisement

They hailed from schools as far as Indian Valley Middle School and as close by as Visitation BVM.

All bets seemed to be off when the final round came down to last year’s winner, Ashraya Ananthanarayanan of Spring-Ford Intermediate School, going up against newcomer, Skyview Upper Elementary School fifth-grader Kevin Cui.

As the showdown grew more intense, the returning champion seemed destined for a repeat victory by confidently nailing the words “misogynist,” “embarcadero” and “conquistador.”

However, when Ashraya stumbled on “Eocene,” Kevin confidently stepped in to correct the fluff and ride the word “détente” on to victory as the winner of 2014 The Times Herald Spelling Bee.

Kevin’s personal, precarious odyssey had taken him from what must have been pieces of C-A-K-E words to him, such as “hurdle” and “contraband,” early on in the bee, to the puzzlers “panglossia,” “keest,” “rasgado” and “glockenspiel” toward evening’s end.

Rarely did he seem even mildly perplexed by any of the words pronouncer Dr. Ken Mont sent his way.

“Sometimes I thought I misspelled a word, but I didn’t,” Kevin said, brandishing his gold trophy that nearly matched him in height.

He also won a Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, a Samuel Louis Sugarman Award Certificate, a one-year subscription to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, a cash award of $100 and hotel accommodations for a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May.

“I study every day and try to look up pronunciations of words,” said Kevin, who won his school bee with the word “jurisdiction. “I think the words here were much harder than my school bee and it was much more of a competition.”

Kevin’s mother, Jiannan Kang, pointed out that Kevin’s No. 22 in the spelling lineup was “a lucky number,” having been appointed to Ashraya last year.

“I am so excited for him,” said the Lower Providence resident, who credited her son’s friend, Jeffrey Gong, Skyview’s second-place winner, for helping him hone his skills.

“They test each other with words all the time,” Kang said.

Kevin was not the youngest speller to compete in the bee on Friday night. But he will be the youngest that The Times Herald has ever sent to the Scripps National Bee.

Kevin admitted he didn’t know much about Scripps, other than having caught a couple of videos of the prestigious bee on You Tube.

In addition to second-place winner Ashraya, to get to the top spot, Kevin had trounced some formidable competition in the form of third place winner Abigail Richter of Pottstown Middle School; fourth place winner Natalie Dolan of Corpus Christi School and fifth place winner Jake Feingold of Welsh Valley Middle School.